Kaduna — Residents of Doka in Kaduna North Local Government Area yesterday protested what they described as outrageous electricity bills and insufficient supply of electricity to their homes.

The angry residents marched from Ungwar Liman to Kaduna Electric customer care centre at Abuja Road by Sardauna Crescent and from there to Kaduna Electric headquarters along Ahmadu Bello Way raising placards that decried 'unfair treatment' by officials of the electricity company towards them.

Speaking on behalf of the Concerned People of Doka, Comrade L. A Abdullahi alleged that several hundred electricity bills from KEDCO to Doka community and beyond had doubled and in some cases tripled in the last one month.

"The residents of this community, particularly Ungwar Liman and Ungwar Gaji have not been enjoying sufficient supply of electricity and anytime the community encounters difficulty emanating from electrical poll or transformer, KEDCO demonstrates helpless attitude towards rendering assistance. Instead they ask the community to contribute money to resolve the challenge," he said.

He added that recent prepaid metres 'imposed on the community' did not go down well with the people," and that to worsen the situation, "the metres run faster" than the ones earlier mounted.

When contacted, the Head of Corporate Communication, Kaduna Electric, Abdulazeez Abdullahi, said there was no increase in tariff but that what the people probably noticed was as a result of increase in energy consumption in the last one month.

He said the people had never reported issues of epileptic power supply in parts of the community, but assured that the Kaduna Electric would investigate and address it.

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